Location: Otley, Leeds

Background: Soft Options is a long established independent home furnishings retailer, who had recently been taken over by their new owner.

Brief: To update their current branding giving a more modern, but classic feel so as not to alienate their loyal, longstanding customer base, and to create a new website which would be hosted and managed by the client.

Outcome: We spent time understanding the business, it’s history and values, as well as the aims and objectives of it’s new owner Helen.

After researching fonts and colours we created a suite of different logos, paying special attention to the fact that most of Helen’s advertising is on social media. So she needed a logo which would work online as well as on external shop signage and stationery, etc.

We came up with the idea of using a simple but fluid script style font for the word “Soft” and a more modern font for the word “Options” to create a stylish but contemporary feel to the logo.

The midnight blue and gold we chose perfectly represented the classic feel that Helen was wanting to create.

Website: After an exploratory meeting looking at different website ideas from within the interior furnishings industry, we sourced a WordPress website theme which met all of Helen’s requirements. Together with Shari Sant from Red Rite we set to work transferring Helen’s domain name from her previous web company into her own domain account, set up the website and email hosting so that they were on the same platform and easy for Helen to maintain. We created a Site Map which enabled Helen to understand the information we needed from her to create her dream website, which reflects both her own creative flair and personality and that of her new business.

Collaboration: We collaborated on this project with Shari Sant from Red Rite, online business manager working with small start-up businesses. We worked closely with Shari who brought our website ideas to life with her tech wizardry.

View website: www.softoptionsotley.co.uk